Cognitive Behavioral Therapy From WorryWart

Our dear friend Worrywart was kind enough to send this. It is much needed and appreciated. Thank you WW!


COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY


Because finding employment is so complex and challenging
today, job-seekers are more in need of mental, emotional and physical
well-being than those still employed. Flexibility,
fortitude and stamina are critically important inner-conditions, for job
seekers to be able to continually self-motivate with little or no external
positive reinforcement.



Optimal job-searching requires that displaced workers be
able to objectively view themselves, their employability, and their job-hunting
methods (e.g., one’s capabilities and expectations in relation to prevailing job-market-realities),
and then be able to synergize such assessments into new or modified objectives,
strategies, and tactics.



However, stress, depression, anxiety and other mental
problems stemming from long-term unemployment can induce psychological and even
physical difficulties – difficulties that can impair one’s “fine-abilities” to seek
employment, and that can potentially result in a vicious circle.



Because emotions are based upon perceptions and patterns of
thinking, it stands to reason that the degree to which one can modify their perceptions
and thought-patterns regarding any specific situation, is the degree to which
one can modify his/her emotions when placed in (or reminded of) that specific
situation. This is, in a nutshell, the
rationale behind CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy).



With CBT, the first goal is to identify (e.g.,
define/describe/document) whichever specific situations - engendered by
unemployment - that most upsets oneself.
The second goal is to isolate which specific facet, of a situation identified
as especially upsetting, is the source of the most upset . . .



For example, one of my 99er friends has shared with me that during
his unemployment, one of the specific situations that upset him the most occurred
back when he was still collecting UI benefits.
He absolutely could not stand calling TeleServe to certify for
unemployment benefits. He hated it so
much that he later said that he experienced a sense of relief once he knew he could
no longer collect UI – because he no longer had to call TeleServe!



That was many months ago, and the passage of time has given
him enough objectivity to be able to isolate those of his perceptions and
thought-patterns that were causing him such upset every time he called that automated
questionnaire protocol. He said:



“I felt
like I was being monitored and controlled and by the government. I felt guilty about calling TeleServe to get
money – like I was doing something wrong.
And somewhere in the back of my mind I had the thought that one day the
government was going to be make me pay the money back.”



Now, this situation that I used as an example might not especially
trouble most of the people who file for unemployment benefits every two
weeks. Or, that situation may bother
some claim-filers, yet not bother them to the degree that calling TeleServe
bothered my friend. Emotions to
situations are based upon one's perceptions and thought-processes related to those
situations; therefore, specific situations that terribly upset one person may leave 50
other people only mildly annoyed. The
key is to drill-down until one can identify the specific facets of a given
situation that are causing the most upset . . . and to then explore the reasons
why those facets so upset oneself (e.g., perceptions and thought-processes).



There are situations that are almost part-n-parcel of the Long-Term
Unemployment experience: familial estrangement, demanding creditors, loss of daily
structure, loss of professional identity, ongoing resume rejections, austerity
lifestyle changes, social embarrassment, fear of permanent impoverishment, lack
of options.



One unemployed blogger wrote that what was bothering him the
most was that he was confining himself to his home because: “. . . . Leaving the house is worse than
staying in because I generally have nowhere to go but to the park or to the
library -- you know, places where the homeless hang out.”



In conclusion, if LTU feel that themselves becoming increasingly despondent, and that this despondency (or anger - or
fear) is hurting their job searches, it might be worth spending a week carrying a
small notebook and jotting down the time and situation every time they experience
a heavy burst of negative emotionality. Afterwards,
the goal would be to isolate the facet of the situation they found most
upsetting, and to flesh out which of their thought-process are imbuing a particular facet
of a specific situation with so much negative emotionality.



This is not to be construed as suggesting that CBT is a
beat-all-end-all, one-size-fits-all remedy.
But it is one tool that does work for a lot of people . . . be their
primary problem LTU, or something else.

Good to hear from WW

"However, stress, depression, anxiety and other mental
problems stemming from long-term unemployment can induce psychological and even
physical difficulties – difficulties that can impair one’s “fine-abilities” to seek
employment, and that can potentially result in a vicious circle."


So true-thank you for the info WW.

"With CBT, the first goal is to identify (e.g.,
define/describe/document) whichever specific situations - engendered by
unemployment - that most upsets oneself.
The second goal is to isolate which specific facet, of a situation identified
as especially upsetting, is the source of the most upset . . ."